Hot off the heels of playing Red Faction: Guerrilla it got me thinking, what is it with games this generation just milking one idea?

This game's main selling point is the destructibility of the environment, the developers obviously spent a lot of time working out the quirks of the engine and when it comes down to it, its rather magnificent.

But all the other aspects of the titles fail to stand out, whether that's the graphics themselves which are hardly anything special, the shooting mechanics which feel very archaic, the enemy and NPC AI which is beyond retarded, a camera that is seemingly fighting me every step of the way and many other issues.

It seems that this game had a lot of time spent making the physics as versatile and realistic as possible, but everything else was not given the same degree of attention. This could issues of time or budget but regardless they stop a title like this becoming a must have game.

Having a unique selling point is always good thing to have in the crowded video game market but not at the expense of having every other aspect of the title be extraordinarily average.

After listening to the latest episode of 1Up Yours, the presenters expressed their concerns about how many game reviewers are out to chastise games trying to make a review objective and based around criteria rather than what it is, a subjective opinion piece. However it just happens that it is exactly what those presenters do, a certain sense of hypocrisy.

On the majority of game podcasts I listen to, and it is a lot, the presenters are concerned and annoyed about the review aspect of games journalism, whether that is the arbitrary score or trying to be subjective and repress opinions.

However nobody tried to change it my question is why do they make no attempt to change their ways and what do the average readers and listeners want out of a review, I think we need a change. It's all well and good complaining but if you make no attempt to change then you will stagnate and become obsolete.

With the advent of digital distribution has changed the way we now receive content. DLC on consoles is something that picked up steam with the launch of the Xbox 360, it saw many attempts to monetise content with incidents like horse armour for Oblivion and paying for cheats in The Godfather.

But now publishers have worked out that players are willing to pay for better content like extra characters and levels. For the majority of customers it comes down to a question of value for money and the majority of publisher are now offering good downloadable content.

However it is becoming more and more common for a publisher to take content out of a game and save to become available later on as downloadable content. Tomb Raider Underworld is one such example where a few weeks after the game is released Xbox 360 owners are able to download exclusive levels and a new character.There is very little doubt that this content could have been included on the disc. The content being exclusive is not the issue the fact that they expect the player to pay for something that should and could have been included on the disc is.

Bioshock's release on the PS3 was originally designed to come with time trial esque levels but instead they have been pushed back to become downloadable content it's the same issue.

There was a similar issue with SoulCalibur 4 with both versions having an exclusive character and the only way to play as them, it was promised, was the buy the specific version. Yet now a few months later the characters will be available as downloadable content. It was excepted and expected at the reveal of the exclusive characters that they would available later on but it was promised they would not, put simply they basically lied.

Downloadable content can be done fantastically to help make an old game a fresh experience, the two best examples being Burnout Paradise and Team Fortress 2 both of which feature updates that add completely new ideas to help bring back people who stopped playing to experience the new content. It helps that the updates are free, too.

DLC is still a relatively new idea that publishers and developers are testing the waters with but it is becoming somewhat commonplace for a publisher to abuse it by expecting the players to have to pay for content that would have been on the disc.

The easy solution is to say vote with your wallets but the that doesn't seem to help, after all hundreds of thousands of people decided to pay for the Oblivion horse amour and while new levels for Tomb Raider Underworld is certainly better value for money the problem is exactly the same.

It's a Dark Knight.

The Joker is excellent. There, I said it, most people said it, let's get it out of the way, Ledger is very, very good in this film. I loved his rendition of the Joker, I am a fan of Batman in the sense that I don't read the comics but I love the mythos and backstory, and for me Ledger's Joker is almost exactly what I always imagined the role should be; just an insane, nonsensical force of destruction and disorder. The only part that was missing for me was the more silly humour, the pencil trick was good but I would have preferred maybe another touch like that, but overall he was the most eye catching character seen on screen since Jack Sparrow. Whenever he was on screen you focus on him, completely.

Harvey Dent was easily as good as the Joker. SPOILERS AHEAD. Two Face was bloody excellent, so cold and psychotic, any scene he was instantly filled with fear. The confrontation between the Joker and Two Face is easily one of the most "epic" cinematic scenes, I saw two actors lost in their role taking the audience on a dark journey that was just wonderful to see. It reminded me a lot of the "I'm a clown," scene in Goodfellas in terms of tension that was created.

Seriously I cannot say it any clearer, the two villains in the film were fantastic. However the rest of the film was not.

Let's start with Bruce, I am not a huge fan of Bale, I do not like his cold delivery that he seemingly does in most of his films and this is not different. He was not a character I could empathise with when the film clearly wanted me to. Plus his overly deep voiced Batman is just jarring. The rest of the character left very little impression on me. Sure Freeman, Oldman and Caine were great but that's what I expected, but for a two and half hour film I feel their characters could have been expanded beyond their simple roles. Rachel Dawes was a character I simply didn't care for, she didn't have any clear motivations nor any real involvement in the story besides motivating Dent.

The cinematography in the film was brilliant, I loved the "real" special effects with minimal CGI, the explosions in particular were spectacular. However a lot of the action didn't really fit with me. Batman can jump and survive a rather large fall, even though it is a comic book film I feel the punishment Batman takes is a bit over the top, particularly when the film is striving to be realistic. Another issue is some of the scenes were too over the top and reminded me a lot of James Bond, particularly the skyhook.

Over all it is a great film in showcasing two amazing villains that were for me played exactly how I would want them to be. But as a film as I was not as astounded as I expected to be, and I didn't go in expecting a lot. The ending particularly irked me in the treatment of the Joker, his finale was not fitting of his character, it just ended, for me it needed to be more spectacular although having his plans just fizzle out into nothing and him becoming completely ineffectual was his ultimate punishment. But the treatment of Two Face was just as bad as he is in the film for the last reel and then dies, he has a great impact but it left me hankering for more.

These are my thoughts after seeing the film once, perhaps once it is out on DVD I can explore it further but right now I am not likely to step onto the Oscar/Bafta hype train any time soon.

Cutting to the chase in a way that will distract you from my inability to think of a witty opening I present to you an issue; the industry is facing change.

For most of the year it seems as though complaints are being heard everywhere that the industry is moving itself more towards a casual market and leaving behind the hardcore gamers. That's pretty much a summary of what a lot of people are thinking which is a shame. Others see the expansion into the casual market as natural progression for the industry. Another group simply don't care as long as the games keep coming.

Whichever group you see yourself in is irrelevant; the change is happening. Rumours are running wild about both Sony and Microsoft developing motion controllers similar in idea to the Wii's. Nothing unusual, the Wii has simply eclipsed both of its competitors so its natural for the competition to follow its lead in a hope to gain back lost customers and market share.

Now we have a situation, Microsoft and Sony are copying Nintendo's strategy of offering something new and simply, less emphasis on the new here however since they gain the middle of a Polo for originality. So does that mean like Nintendo they both will start to put focus on more mass market games? Well they should or the new controllers will simply rot and die without support, nobody will buy a Playstation 3 and the new remote if there's only a handful of games supporting it.

Beyond the issue of both companies "selling out," there is something that concerns me, a lot. You see I am an enterprising Games Journalist soon to enter University, by the time I end my course and start looking for employment there will be a whole new generation of consoles out. I have faced plenty of criticism for wanting to enter a branch of journalism which is seen as niche, pointless and attaching critical analysis to toys. Recently things have shifted thanks to both GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 showing how the next generation can do cinematic experiences and even supersede them. Put simply games are now branching to into a very serious art form full of the same messages and ideas seen in other art forms. I for one am glad of this, Games Journalism is not a career that you can be for 40 years most move onto PR jobs or onto more highbrow forms of journalism typically in more serious newspapers and magazines, this is what I have been told I will be doing, its often said I will do the Games Journalism thing for a few years before becoming a serious film critic, that sort of thing. So I am glad that games are now stepping up into a very serious form that being a serious citric is no longer an oxymoron.

So to see all three companies being positioned towards the casual market worries me. Call it snobbery but I don't want to review and critic mini game collections and heavily simplified version of Gears of War. I want to discuss games in the same way films and music is discussed in serious publications. The casualisation I see as being potential spanner to my works. It may not happen and chances are Nintendo have such a claw dug into the market that Sony and Microsoft will struggle to even move their finger off the casual market.

To conclude what do you think of the potential casualisation of the industry? Do you approve or disprove and why?

Hitman.

Yet another video game has found itself heavily hacked, slashed and generally brutalised in order to fit what is supposed to be a ten hour experience into a nice and manageable 90 minute action romp. Yet like so many other video game adaptations it had to go under some heavy changes in order to satisfy the audience of action film lovers. This is a big problem as the Hitman games are all about performing things slowly and as stealthily as possible, however transferring this to a film is not likely to make for the most exciting proposition. The main problem is that games are supposed to be played and very rarely does watching a game entertain the viewer.

So the games' trademark stealth has been gotten rid of in favour or creating an all out action film, made very much in the Bourne trilogy mould. The parallels between the two films are staggering; the protagonist is a person made purely as the ultimate killing machine, he is betrayed by his employer and finds himself on the run and he meets up with an exotic woman who he decides to take with him for the ride. The yarn this film makes however is a lot more complicated than the Bourne films as there is simply too much going on. Characters are being introduced with the film with little explanation behind their origins or intentions. Naturally there are a few big twists in the story however they come rather unexpectedly as there is no precedence to them accruing, although it does make them all the more surprising. Overall you have to keep constantly concentrating on what is going on, it almost feels as though the story could fall apart at any minute, although it doesn't, it needs a longer run time in order to allow for more exposition.

That is not to say this film doesn't have its moments. While the action scenes don't suit the background of this film they are executed rather fantastically, the shoot out during the weapons deal meeting being of particular note, the sound design in the film just matches these scenes immensely thanks to their visceral nature, this is one film to see in a cinema or on a very good surround sound set up. The pairing of 47 and Nika together throws up some interesting conversations, 47's psychotic tendencies creating some surprisingly comedic moments, even if Nike spends a lot of the movie being dragged around with occasionally shrieking and some hissy fits.

The films, like a lot of video game adaptations has some ridiculous moments though. For instance when 4 assassins face off in a Mexican stand of they all agree to put their guns down and got at it with short swords, which brings up two ideas of why were they carrying them and also why didn't one of them just shoot the others, honour among thieves doesn't exactly exist when your job is to kill others regardless of who they are. During the opening monologue the Agency, 47 works for, is supposed to be so secret that nobody knows about it, although how they get their client base is beyond me. Plus it later conspires that both Interpol and the FSB are well aware of the organisation.

Still the best part of this film doesn't come from the film at all. You in see in the theatrical trailer it is presented as 47 being Deus Ex Machina, so when in the film Interpol discover an ornate cross in his case along with his weapons the audience presume its because he is religious, however it is an elaborate plot twist involving the cross being a key for Interpol to use to open up the top room in a Cathedral to find 47. To explain it in text is difficult and also runs the risk of spoiling it, but the synergy of the trailer and the film is one of the most unique things to come from cinema in 2007.

So while on the surface this maybe a rather average action film, it at least brings some interesting ideas and is overall a very enjoyable experience, just don't go in expecting a BAFTA worthy experience.

Resident Evil 4 was cited by many as being the most advanced console game of all time back when it was released on the Gamecube, it certainly was the best looking console game and also started a trend that saw games start to resemble films thanks to heavily cinematic cut scenes as well as levels of interactivity within the environment that haven't been seen in a video game before.

The story itself revolves around Leon Kennedy, who after the events in Resident Evil 2 has been employed to help protect the President of the United States. Not bad for somebody who's previous experience involves being stuck in a zombie apocalypse on their first day in a new job, some people have no luck.

Anyway the President's daughter has been kidnapped and its up to you to rescue her. Quite why'd they send only one person as apposed to say; the Navy Seals is beyond me, but that's just the start of the game's ideas of distorting reality in favour of a cool idea.

You have been sent to Spain, sorry I mean a western European country with no name It just happens to have all the signs written in Spanish, the people speaking Spanish and the local currency is pesetas. It's not Spain.

You are driven to a village by two gormless Spanish, I mean western European cops with Spanish accents and they then promptly tell you to go away and they stay in the car while you explore a dark forest. Nothing could possibly go wrong here. You find a house and Leon immediately starts questioning and flashing a photo in front of a random villager, he responds in Spanish and picks up a fire poke. Leon responds by shooting him. Bear in mind Leon didn't knock at the door and you had the options of, and I'm not kidding you here, jumping through a window to get inside the house. Well apparently the innocent villager is clearly an enemy so you respond by killing him. Yeah not subduing him by tackling him to the ground, no you kill him. Had Leon not done this than many of the following bad events may never have happened.

Suddenly the bridge, which you crossed to get into the village, collapses, there's no way back now. Who didn't see that coming? The two Spanish cops, damn it western European cops have their car shunted into a river killing them and the house is then surrounded by the villagers. Rather than apologising Leon is then supposed to kill them all. By this point in the game you have killed 4 people who were responding to a threat to their homes. Go, America.

Still you soon get to a small clearing where you find a dog caught in a bear trap and you have the option of letting it go or walking past it. Yeah that's right you can walk past and leave it to die. Nice. Upon releasing it, it runs away surprisingly fast for a dog that would have had a broken leg. I'm guessing the dogs sensed Leon's natural thirst for death. Still Capcom doesn't end the silliness there, there are a few crow scattered about and upon shooting them they drop grenades on the floor. I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering just why this happens.

After a few more encounters with the innocent villagers you arrive in the main part of the village. You observe them going about their normal business like aimlessly shuffling around. There seems to have been a nasty accident where one of the Spanish cops, sorry western European cops has fallen onto a fire and impaled themselves on a stick. Still you enter the village and the villagers respond by investigating who this new person is. Leon then shoots them. Smooth. Still this obviously has dire consequences with the villagers trying to catch Leon the mass murderer, since lets face it, the local law enforcement isn't exactly enforcing much.

Still you then have to survive for a given amount of time before a mysterious bell tolls and the villagers scarper. I presume it's the bell to tell the villagers that some orphaned, blind "Andrex" puppies need feeding, I could be wrong. Anyway you are then free to explore these people's homes. You can break open their crates and pots and steal the contents which is usually their money. So essentially Leon has turned from mass murderer to petty criminal now. I thought he was the hero. Not only that but you can also harm the local livestock by repeatedly slashing a cow with your knife. Why did Capcom include that option?

Moving on you find yourself in a large mansion and while exploring it you run into a very tall man, he is clearly the head of the local area. Leon's response? He tries to spin kick him. Can't say I'd do the same upon meeting the mayor but still that's just how Leon rolls. Like a complete jackass apparently. You are then promptly subdued to prevent any further mass genocide. You wake up and find yourself tied up, a kind villager sees this and swing his axe down to break the ropes, which is a very nice gesture. Leon, being Leon manages to return this kind gesture by walking away while the villager is impaled onto the wall due to Leon's reaction What a complete douche.

You see a mysteriously hooded man walk past the window, upon confronting him you find he is a local salesman. Leon than goes ahead and exchanges the money he stole from the innocent villagers for some weaponry which he will then use to kill more villagers. He will then steal their money and buy more weapons with it. it's a vicious circle of craziness.

You approach a large mine where the villagers are simply having a normal working day down the pits. Leon bought a sniper rifle. I think you can see where this is going. After slaughtering 60 miners who's families will now starve, you move onto a lakeside. Leon has to cross the lake and upon seeing somebody's boat he decides to use it. Without the owner's permission naturally. Well that's because the owner is currently trying to recover fomo having his head blown apart by Leon earlier on. Well halfway through crossing the lake a huge monster attacks Leon. Leon's response is to pretend to be Captain Ahab and he promptly throws a few hundred harpoons into the creature. Leon just killed the lock Ness monster's mother. When he reaches the other side of the lake he suddenly collapses. Well frankly wouldn't you? Murdering 100s of people sure is tiring.

That is where we shall end for now, tune in later for more exposure on Leon Kennedy's ideas of what is acceptable behaviour for a representative of the American President I'll give you a clue though, it involves some bullets.

Entering the world of PC gaming.

Welcome to this experiment, in this experiment I am to find out all about the world of PC gaming in the hope of gaining more knowledge on the mysterious creature known only as a "gamer." Armed with a new laptop I was locked in a small room filled only with Coke Cola, Red bull, some pizza and a notepad. I was given the instruction of "learn more about PC gaming," so I began.

Day one- This day is also now known as the day where I spent the entire time staring at a bar that slowly filled up. Installation processes are fun. Just in case you think you can do something else while your new laptop installs they insist on asking you to double check every little process it performs. Still it isn't as easy as just installing your OS of choice onto your new laptop, you then have to set up your wireless network, install any extra software like anti virus protection and transfer all your old files to your new laptop. Day one was a time of waiting. Lots of waiting. Some polystyrene and packaging and bubble wrap made up for it though. It's nice that computer manufactures include items designed to amuse their customers in their boxes. Well apart from packets of silicon gel which offer very little amusement after the whole "stomach pump" incident.

Day two wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs either. Updates, they are like installation processes but rely on an internet connection so they work slightly slower than the average installation process. Still after a day of toil and trouble I finally have my laptop set up to play some games.

Day three- My mistake. How silly of me I forgot that you have to install and update the PC games.

Day four- So I loaded my first PC game. It was called Half Life 2. You play as a mute character who everybody still talks too as if they are expecting an answer. I am utterly confused as to why everybody insists on telling me their life's problems, I can't give them advice and they just end up saying the same thing over and over again. They might as well talk to the speaking clock. Still I must say being ordered to put an empty can into a bin by a stun stick wielding psycho reminded me far to much of an average Friday night. I have placed Half Life 2 into my pile of games that cause deep physiological damage along with Animal Crossing and Pokemon.

Day five- Well after Half Life 2 updated itself and added nothing I decided to try out a different game. I opted for a title called Halo, I could only presume it was some sort of angel frisbee throwing simulator. Imagine my surprise upon playing what essentially amounted to Half Life 2 in space. I was still being talked to by people who expected an answer from a mute. Still this game was totally different in the sense that I had the option to kill them. Somewhere around this time you are probably thinking I am a psycho and are moving your cursor towards the "red x" and I can't blame you. Still this goes some way to perhaps explaining why my immediate reaction in life is to now hit people upon them asking me a rhetorical question. Who says video games aren't educational?

Day six- I indulged myself in some Doom 3. About this time I now fully expect every PC game to feature a mute who everybody engages in conversation. Still the difference is everybody talks to you in the dark in this game. I don't know who designed this building but they must have been thinking about their carbon footprint by installing one light bulb in every large room. Still the designer should have used long life light bulbs as the ones he installed keep blowing out leaving the rooms veiled in darkness. Its nice that you don't have to search around for the fuse box in the dark before replacing the light bulb though. No Half Life 2 ****chores around here. Instead your mute hero just uses a flashlight. He also possesses the unique ability of only holding anything in one hand. Want to hold a pistol in your left hand and a torch in your right hand, well you can't, our mute hero has seemingly sprained his wrist and instead only uses his right hand for everything. I could write a sentence involving some innuendo about the originals of a man who has a suspiciously sprained his wrist but I'm afraid you may find the idea of somebody who lurks around the dark with a sprained wrist and attacks people not ideal territory for innuendo. Well I will put some innuendo in anyway. Who says the British sense of humour is anything but camp "Carry On" esque one liners? Not this writer that's for sure. Still our mute hero does have the ability to attack people with his long, slender phallic torch. "Ooh matron!" Satisfied? I think a small part of me may have just died inside, that or the PC gamer diet of choice of Coke Cola, Red Bull and pizza has just melted my lower intestine.

Day 7 I decided to enter into something called a "deathmatch," I was disappointed to find out it wasn't an illegal wrestling match. Instead I had jumped into a parallel universe where everybody speaks using the fewest amount of letters possible and believe that replacing every vowel with a number is acceptable English. 1t 1s n0t. It was interesting how many people took an immense amount of glee from killing others before gloating about it. We have a fine generation being brought up on video games, it seems. Still I found out the hard way that you are not allowed to win a game, as you are then a cheater, apparently. You are not allowed to lose either as you are than apparently a gibbering, brain dead amoeba. Instead you must fall in the category of being mediocre. Oh and also if you are a girl and find yourself ever in need of an emergency boyfriend than forget "Facebook" or "Friend's Reunited" simply play a so called "deathmatch," and speak to the other players using a microphone, the players then suddenly revert to the days of "no she was speaking to me," schoolboy behaviour. I take a great amount of pleasure by pretending to be female online now, one could read deeply into this but I don't think you'd really want to.

Still that ends my first week's foray into PC gaming, What have we learned this week? Well apparently you must be a mute, mediocre psycho who enjoys some household choirs in order to star in a PC game. So PC game characters are essentially Michael Myers armed with tubs of Cilit Bang. Perhaps next week we will find out what motivates these psychotic cleaners.

2008 is going to be historic, one of the reasons is that Q1 and Q2 game releases will have some fantastic titles like Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto IV and Super Smash Bros Brawl. This is unusual in the sense that historically the first half of any given year has pretty poor game releases , the term; "summer games drought" is not used lightly. Then at the end of the year we will have releases like Spore and Banjo Kazooie so it should be fantastic.

Well it should be, right? Well it may not be. There has recently been a lot of recent ramblings of a successor to the DS and a successor to the Xbox 360. Now this is hardly unusual, the DS is three years old now and talk of a successor is very much standard. The 360 talk has been less substantial with some articles on what the specs may be like.

Obviously both companies have vehemently denied the rumours. Nintendo are still using the rather horrible stance of "if it is still selling why change it?" When I say horrible it comes across as Nintendo not wanting to improve their technology because they are making a mint off it so it seems pointless to them.

Now I'm concentrating on both the DS and the Xbox 360 because I am a little concerned for both consoles. You see both consoles at this moment lack a killer app for 2008. I am also going to lump in the Wii in that statement too.

That's not to say they lack any game for 2008, the 360 is getting Alan Wake, Ninja Gaiden 2 and Banjo Kazooie. The DS is also getting Ninja Gaiden and the Wii is getting Mario Kart. However they have all released their biggest titles, Halo 3 Legend of ,Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Super Mario Galaxy respectively.

The problem is they haven't actually announced anything big for 2008, meanwhile the Playstation 3 has always been pointing towards 2008 with titles like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gran Turismo 5. Now surely I'm not the only one concerned about that.

Now I'd like to focus on the Xbox 360, recent events such as Peter Moore moving to EA, Bizarre Creations being bought by Activisions, Bungie becoming a separate studio again and Bioware being eaten up by EA show a lack of vision for the 360. All three studios have produced the biggest exclusives for the console and Microsoft just letting them go seems awful strange now don't it?

Now I am no longer suggesting that Microsoft are going to either drop of the business or release another new Xbox year (http://youtube.com/watch?v=bDN_5sQKjJQ) but Microsoft must have a good master plan or seemingly no plan at all.

Putting it bluntly 2008 seems on paper to have some good releases but 3 consoles have a slightly rocky road ahead of them.

I have heard recently a lot of praise for 2007 as one of the greatest years for video games. Well you can't really argue against the games that have been released this year; Halo 3, Bioshock, Crysis, Metroid Prime 3 and what is currently the number one title on Gamerankings.com Super Mario Galaxy.

This year has been the year that four platforms have released a salvo of killer apps; the four platforms in question being the PC, DS, Wii and Xbox 360. Unfortunately the Playstation 3 has not really had any games to match the competition this year.

In just under a year Nintendo have released the latest iterations of their biggest titles; Metroid Prime 3 , Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Super Mario Galaxy. Microsoft have pushed Halo 3 out of the door, their biggest franchise, to the tune of "biggest multimedia event in history." The PC has had Crysis and Bioshock, too games showing how the PC does the shooter* genre extremely well. The Playstation 3 has been marching to the tune of "wait for 2008," although God of War 2 has shown there is still very little need for fancy next generation technology,.

Sales wise well the year belongs to Nintendo. The DS has increased the gap between the PSP by a large margin. Meanwhile the Wii has beaten the Xbox 360's overall sales and is now the number one selling home console, not bad when it has barely been out for a year. The Xbox 360 has continued as normal with a large sales blip upon the release of Halo 3.The Playstation has been lagging behind both competitors all year but the recent price drops and new "40gig" system packages have revived sales dramatically.

It'd be very easy to say this year has been the year of Nintendo because of overwhelming sales and fantastic game sales and I will do just that; 2007 belonged to Nintendo.

However I have one big problem with people proclaiming this year as being one of the best for games. Has everybody forgotten the first 6 months of 2007?*

* If you don't realise what I am talking about just ask yourself what good games were released back then?

**Yes Bioshock is arguably an RPG but for arguments sake it's a FPS.